In Every Era
by May
Summary: A group of teens should be saving the world, only thing is, they don't want to. (sort of AU)
1. In Every Era ~ Preface

In Every Era-Preface   
They would have never left home, but then it happened. The sky fell down, you know. A sky made of flames and gas. A sky from Hell. There was no time, that much they know. They were lucky to get out when they did. The bombs fell on their home. The others like them attacked. Hell came to town.   
  
One day they were happy and going about their lives. Then, one day in the early morning hours, their world came crashing down. It was hot, hotter then a heat wave in July. Some of them knew why. It was because of the fire. The fire burning everywhere around them. The buildings, the plants. The people.   
  
The stench of sizzling flesh is still fresh in most of their minds. So are the sounds of people, their families and friends, screaming, shouting,pleading for the pain to stop. It rings in their ears and haunts them in their dreams. Some wake up shaking, one even wakes up screaming.   
  
They don't talk about it,though. Never. They've made a silent pact to never ever talk about it. Two years have past and not one of them has ever said a word about it. They just keep running. They run because they know that they can't stop. So, they keep going. They know they're supposed to try and save the world,but they don't want to. They just want to stay alive. And forget.   
  
But, they can't forget. They can never forget. They're to young to feel the pain they feel. Sometimes, late at night, they think about why God let them live. Why'd he let the six of them live and why he let the other twenty-five mutants die that day. Then they think about how they got out. How Nick teleported Eli LeBeau,James Drake, and Annie Summers out. How Will, the boy with no last name, had grabbed Jack LeBeau by the hand and ran out with her. How Will held on way to tight and how his hand was full of sweat and blood. Some blood that wasn't even his own. But, they never talk about it. They did make a silent pact.   
  
They never talk about it. They try so hard to forget. But they remember. 


	2. In Every Era ~ Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own anything to do with mutants or the X-Men; that belongs to Marvel Comics. 

Notes: If you would like this for your site, please ask. I'd like to thank my co-author, Juel Valor who's busy on chapter 2. Also, most of the kids don't have accents or very thick ones; they're either losing them on the road or have stopped talking with the to hide better, ok?

**Chapter One: Nightmares, Keys and the Road:**

She wanted to close her eyes, but found she couldn't. Most of her loved ones were dead already; Hank McCoy was lying with a broken neck not fifteen feet away from her and Remy Le Beau was spread next to him, his neck slashed so badly that it looked that his neck would fall off any second. Logan was crashed under the weight of a building as it burned and toppled. 

She could hear Jubilee, she couldn't see her, but God how she could hear her. Screaming for someone to please help her. Screaming for Skin. Then Jubilee stopped screaming. It was an awful, abrupt silence.

She couldn't take it anymore. That was when she saw the huge shadow above her. She screamed.

The piercing scream seemed to echo through the small, beat-up Winnebago from hell. Annie Summers shot up in bed. Her chin-length red hair was wet and he soft green eyes were full of unspeakable horror. She gasped.

Eli Le Beau bent over the bunk bed and looked down at her. Annie usually thought that Eli looked like a monkey when she did it, but not now. Now, she didn't even notice the older girl. Annie just screamed. Nick Wagner and James Drake had gotten out of their buck bed, which was next to the girl's and were now standing at the side of Annie's. 

"A? Annie?! Stop screaming!" James screamed. He lifted his hand as if he might hit her. Nick grabbed his best friend's wrist in mid air. "What?" James questioned turning on Nick. "It's the only way to make her stop that screaming."

"Don't you dare scream at her." Eli warned him, just before she jumped down from the top bunk. "And don't even think about hitting her." After two years on the road, Eli's accent was hardly there.

It was then that Will and Jack came through the tiny door. They had waited a few seconds, most likely thinking the screaming would stop. Nick noticed them and let go of James' wrist. He sat down on the bed next to Annie and pulled the thirteen year old into a tight hug. She whimpered and stopped screaming. 

"Nick," Will started. The others all turned to look at their 'leader.' "You calm her down. James, go outside and cool off. Eli, go with him. Jack and I will look for the keys. We should move." He spoke with a slight English accent and even though he was wiry, he spoke with ease and unmistakable confusion.

Nick nodded and began stroking Annie's hair. The others headed out to leave the young mutant to his work.

Eli and James leaned against the outside of the Winnebago. He had a cigarette between his long fingers that he wasn't bothering to smoke. There was a slight chill in the air, and a low wind that kept making his shaggy blond hair fall over his crystal blue eyes. Eli wrapped her jean jacket around her green pajamas and wished she were wearing something else. She kicked a rock with her slipper.

"Think Will, will find de keys?" Eli asked with a strange ease. Like she was asking James what time it was or how to get to a shop.

James shrugged. "Don't know. Hope so. The last time Annie woke up screaming-" He couldn't go on.

So, Eli went on for him. "Our car got smashed and Ah nearly got my arm torn off." she rubbed her arm at the memory. "Think dat's her deal? Having dreams 'bout the future Ah mean?"

"Maybe." Now he took a drag from the cigarette. "Won't put it past her. A's always been a little off."

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, like your normal."

"I'm more normal then you." 

"I'm more normal then you." Eli repeated in a mocking tone. 

"Shut-up." James muttered.

"Face it, all six of us are freaks. We're not normal."

He nodded. "I hate to say this, but I'm kind of like it like this, you know? Like nobody can *really* hurt us anymore."

After a few moments, Eli slowly nodded. James put an arm around Eli's shoulder and continued to smoke.

"They didn't just disappear." Will muttered to himself as he crawled around under the small table in the front of the Winnebago. 

It was just wonderful. Bloody brilliant. Annie's nightmare had made everyone on edge. And now the keys were missing. 

Jack stood on the seat of the table and pushed her way up to the small bed that was above the driver's area. She was sure that there had been a ladder for it at some point, and she often wished it were still there. 

Jack looked through her pillow and blanket. "Dey ain't up here, Will."

"Well," Will went to stand up, forgetting he was under the table. "Bloody hell! Ow!" The English mutant crawled under table and held his head. He stood up. 

Jack jumped down from her bed and then from the seat. "You ok?"

"No, I'm not-" He shook his head slightly. He was the leader. The protector. His pain came sixth. "I'm fine. Just no keys under the table. I gotta find them. It's my job to find them and protect them with my life."

The Cajun belle raised an eyebrow. "We still talkin' 'bout keys?"

"Yes?" Will half questioned/half said. Again, Jack raised an eyebrow. Will sighed. "Ok, no we aren't… I don't know. Jack," He paused for what seemed like hours. "help me look for the keys." 

Jack made a huffing noise and looked as if she wanted to tell Will off, but she did as she was told.

Annie sat by Nick and rocked back and forth. He had just finished humming a song to her that his father had used to sing to him. He hadn't remembered all the words, but it had still been nice. Nick now held an old paperback that Jack had stolen from him a few weeks ago. 

"Ok, Jurassic Park. Ooo, scary, because of all the dinos that could be Barney. Ok, here we go."

He read from the place marked in the book: the place where Dr. Hammond began the presentation of the island to the paleontologists and Malcolm. It covered in great detail, though with an amusement park feel to it, the process of cloning dinosaurs, taking the base DNA and adding in the genes of another species to fill in the gaps. The concept alone was staggering, and it awakened something in Annie that no one could truly understand, let alone her. She opened her eyes. They were no longer green; they were red, but Nick didn't notice.  
  


Will flopped down on the bench that was across from the table. Jack sat at the table. They still hadn't found the keys.

The missing keys, Annie's nightmare, and where they were going next weighed heavily on Will's mind. It was practically all he could think about. Five lives depended on him and at 23, he felt like 100. 

Will watched Jack at the table, playing with her beloved card deck. Will couldn't tell what game she was playing with herself, but he knew she wasn't really playing. He knew that she was watching him through her long hair.

"Where are they." Will demanded the air. "Where? Where! Where?!" He sighed deeply.

Jack looked up at him, humming. "Will? Want to play with me?"

Instantly Will bristled. "Give me some peace, would you? Can't you see I'm thinking?"

The second the words were out of his mouth, he regretted them. He saw the look on Jack's face, the hurt in her strange eyes. "I'm sorry, Bit." Will went to her and sat next to her. Tender now. "It's just, I'm stressed is all. With Annie's dreams and the missing keys, I'm frizzed is all," he told her.   
Still wounded, Jack looked down at her cards and turned the queen of hearts face downward. It was too much for him to bear, knowing he had hurt her feelings-again. 

"I-I'm sorry. You know I didn't mean it, right?"

Jack nodded very slowly. "Yeah." she muttered. "Yeah. Come on," she grinned half-heartedly. "We gotta find those keys." 

In the tiny bedroom, Annie was ok now. However, she was still muttering things to herself in a language only she knew. Nick sat beside her and watched fearful as she moved her hands over the sheets and made strange patterns. 

He cleared his throat and she turned to him. "Annie, I'm going to read some more Jurassic Park to you, ok?"

Annie nodded happily and sat very still. Nick began to read again.

Eli had started pacing. As James smoked, he leaned glumly against the Winnebago. They had gone from quietly hanging out to this. He just knew he shouldn't have asked if she was wearing a bra. After all he knew she wasn't. Eli walked back and forth across the rocky road, arms across about her chest, anger ready to explode.  
"Think you could lean with me or change your pattern? Something?" James asked sarcastically. "You're making me want to puke."

"I'm not leaning next to you." Eli turned on him. "**Ah'm** doing somethin' useful. Ah'm thinkin' of ways to help Annie. And maybe where we should go."

"'Why think about that? Will and your sister take care of that stuff."

"You goin' let dem run de rest o' yer life? Jimmy, dey can bearly run deir own." 

Eli had called him Jimmy. He hated when she called him Jimmy. So, he called her the name she hated. "Elizabeth, they are our 'leaders,'" he used air-quotations marks. "They'll think of a place to go, how to take care of Annie, and anything else."  
"But, dat's just it." Eli began. "We let them control us. 'Cause we think dey'd be angry if we didn't let dem. We never even talk 'bout what happened. I bet dat's why Annie has nightmares and-" She paused. Clearly thinking about what to say next. "I'm going in to see if dey found de stupid keys." She moved toward the door.

"Brilliant, what if they haven't found the keys. He'll yell at you. Always does when stuff like this happens."

Eli's hand froze on the knob. She backed away from it. Her eyes were blazing. "So? **I'm** not scared of Will. You think we should just wait out here till dey put all our problems back into Pandora's Box? You really are a loser."

"At least," James broke in, "I'm not a numb-brain freak!"

"You know what?" Eli's voice had lowered to an icy cold tone. "Us fighting is stupid and Ah'm goin' in. Ah'd rather get yelled at then look at yer pathetic face-"

"So go."

With tempers flaring, James and Eli moved closer. They were standing toe to toe now, their faces only inches apart. Everything forgotten but the fight.

"You're a jerk. You don't even care 'bout Annie. You could care less 'bout where we go, or what happens. And worst of all, you don't care dat we never talk 'bout what happened!"

"Yeah? Well… well, you're a moron!"

"Coward!"

"I hate you!"

"I really hate you!"

Furiously they paused; emotions out of control. Then they grabbed each other wildly and-

"Guys! Will found de keys!" Jacked called as she flung the door open.

Eli and James leapt apart, as if they'd been electrocuted. 

"Guys? Ya'll ok?"

"Huh? With the what? Yeah!" Eli spattered. "We're good."

"Great! Never better! Everything is fine! Shall we go in, Eli? Go to bed. I mean, go to our beds. Alone."

"Mm, lets."

The two of them walked into the Winnebago and went to straight to the back.

"How's Annie?" Eli questioned her cousin. She slipped off her jacket and climbed up to her bed.

"Better." Nick stated as he tucked Annie in. "She's ok now, aren't you?" He kissed her forehead and handed her a stuffed, brown, bear. He teleported up to his bed.

"Everyone in bed?" James turned the lights off. "Ok." 

Will had driven for three hours and now he pulled the Winnebago from hell over on the side of the road. Jack was asleep at the table, her cards as her pillow. Will went over and woke her up.

"Bit? You awake?" Will whispered.

Jack moaned sleepily. "No."

Will smiled a bit. "Yes, you are."

"No, I'm not." 

"Yes, you are."

Jack sat up and wiped the drool from her mouth. "Ok, I'm up. What do you want?"  
"To say I'm sorry."

"Uh? 'Bout what?" She clearly knew what he was talking about, but she was going to make him say it.

Will groaned in mock anger. "I'm sorry for the way I acted tonight." He took her hand in his and placed his forehead on hers. "You know I didn't mean it."

"I know. I'm goin' to sleep."

"Can I join you?" He asked with a smirk. 

"No." She stood up on the seat and went to get up to her bed. 

Will moved next to her and pulled her down onto his lap. "You really want to sleep alone?" Jack looked around the small, dark, lonely, Winnebago. She shook her head. "But, that bed is too small and so is this seat. We'll have to use the bathroom."  
"De bathroom? De others might hear." Jack whispered in a hushed voice.

"I promise to cover your mouth if you get to loud." 

Jack smiled. "Do I often get loud?"

"All the time."

They went to the small bathroom and locked the door. A couple of minutes later, muffled noises came from the small bathroom. 

Look for Chapter 2… Coming soon!


End file.
